


30 days of Loki/Tony

by Lunarieen



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Art School, Alternate Universe - Artists, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Angst, Dreams, Feelings, Fluff, Implied Character Death, M/M, Real Life, Secret Relationship, husbands bc that's what they are, i ll update tags as i go, music references
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-03-19 03:39:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 5,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13696092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunarieen/pseuds/Lunarieen
Summary: 30 different prompts for 30 days of Loki/Tony because apparently I can't get enough of this ship and when that happens it means that I have to write them.





	1. Binary - A.I./Androids AU

**Author's Note:**

> First, I started doing this bc of [FelicityGS](http://archiveofourown.org/users/FelicityGS/pseuds/FelicityGS) who writes like a god and if you don't know their fics then you should probably drop whatever you re doing and go read them. 
> 
> second, I really wanna get the hang of these characters so I could write long angsty stories with them bc duh, with me everything hurts.
> 
> third, I really need a kick in the ass to start writing again, so thanks again to FelicityGS for giving me this opportunity. 
> 
> fourth, Tony deserves better 
> 
> fifth, enjoy and if you feel generous, a kudo or a comment is much appreciated <3

 

* * *

 

Loki felt watched as he stepped over the dust and memories and broken glass, fingers sparkling with unsaid magic. The tower was empty, save for the rats and the wind howling in the emptiness. And yet, Loki didn’t feel alone.

He glanced at the ceiling, where he knew J.A.R.V.I.S. had eyes once, blinking at the cameras. The cameras blinked back at him with their dead eyes. There was no life left not even inside the walls. Loki sighed and moved a broken chair out of the way with a flick of his wrist. It has been too long. Maybe he waited for too long. Time killed everything in its wake, and not even super soldiers and artificial intelligence could escape it.

A buzz.

Loki’s ears twitched. He looked over his shoulders. Not even his shadow survived in the dust. He turned to face the elevator. He stared at the doors, at his crooked portrait and raised his hand to press the button.

A whisper.

He thought better of it and teleported himself into the workshop.

A void.

The better word to describe everything would have been _frozen_. Like a landscape painted in dark colours, like a Dürer engraving, all sharp lines and metal and oil. A snap of fingers and everything would be set in motion again. If Loki closed his eyes, he could hear the hum of the machines, the robots going around the space, Stark playing with his own kind of magic. But Stark was dead and so was his legacy.

A sound.

A click.

Loki looked over his shoulder again. There was the sensation again, the anticipation of an encounter. He stared into the metallic face of an armour and the impassive face, all hard lines and narrowed eyes stared at him. He could swear something glimmered in those sockets. He could swear the armour moved, even for just a fraction of a second.

Loki was going insane.

He let a small breath evade his lungs and stepped over a forgotten tool on the ground.

Snap.

“Hey, hey, hey, Bambi, careful where you step. You might break something.”

Loki turned around faster than light, magic ready to take down whoever spoke. He waited for the armour to do something and when his heartbeat calmed down, something clicked in place. The voice. It was familiar.

“Uh, sorry to disappoint,” came the voice again, mechanic, like it was still trying to get used to putting vowels and consonants together to form a word. “That armour won’t move. Unless you plug it into the computer. Are you a dear to do that? Give me a body again?” A pause. “Ah, of course not. You’re not.”

“Who are you?”

There was a pause in the air. Loki held his breath.

“Ah,” the voice chuckled. “And here I thought you’d remember me.”

The first thought was, _Stark._  

The second thought was, _impossible._

The third thought was, _it’s all around me._

 

 

“So, you came for your drink, after all?”


	2. Master - Fantasy AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ Nightcall by Kavinski](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MV_3Dpw-BRY) goes awfully well with this drabble

* * *

 

The stars looked different when you watched them from the cliff. Closer, and yet, untouchable. Tony thought if he could dream up something as powerful as the blinking points in the sky, a small pendant to light up his nights and hang around his neck. Dreams and wishes were a powerful thing and yet, he had no control over them. Yet.

Loki nudged his shoulder. Toki looked over at him from his place on the hood of the car. They only had to lean in to cover the distance. Tony supposed there should be a bad feeling somewhere in there. Something like regret or awareness or panic, but all he felt was giddiness. Control was something he always wanted.

“Second thoughts don’t look good on you.”

Tony decided that he liked how Loki’s voice sounded in the night. With no noise to perturb them, his accent came out more clearly than ever. He would take those words, knit a blanket out of them and wrap it around his shoulders.

“Please. I make everything look better.” Tony was not afraid. He just didn't have the patience. He stretched out his hand and wiggled his fingers when Loki simply raised an eyebrow at him. “Come on, magic boy. Share your magic potions.”

Loki scoffed and uncurled his fingers from the fist he had pressed in his lap. He let a few pills drop over Tony’s stretched palm. Three in total to match Loki’s superstitious nature.

Tony blinked down on them. He moved his wrist. The pills glided along the curve of his palm.

“Really? Red pill or blue pill?”

“One for moderate effects. Two for heightened senses. Three for-”

“Real magic?” Tony asked, his lips curling into the beginning of an insane smile. “I like magic.”

“Everything has a price, Stark.”

Tony gave him a look. “Since when are you so cautious?”

Loki didn’t grace him with an answer. He simply turned to stare at the small town at the foot of the cliff, leaning back on his elbow. The hood of the car cried under his weight and then bent slightly to adjust him. Strands of long hair touched the car and somehow they were darker than the paint job. Tony wanted to card his fingers through it and look at Loki for his reaction.

“Well, here goes nothing,” he said instead in a cheerful voice and swallowed all three pills. Loki smiled without looking at him. Tony closed his eyes and washed the taste with beer. He would do anything to become the master of his dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i just finished rereading the raven boys and i've been feeling ronan so much lately that it somehow translated into this.


	3. Storyteller - happens during Age of Ultron

* * *

 

Tony noticed the shift in the atmosphere, the crackle of tension that flicked over the dead workshop, the small intake of breaths. Tony heard him coming. Tony was sure this wasn’t meant to be a surprise, just a mere test to prove something. To whom, he didn’t know. When the air stilled again, Tony let his chest deflate, all the air going out from his lungs. If he kept his eyes closed a little longer, if he pressed his eyelids a little harder, maybe everything would go away and the reality around him would morph into something else, something he would like to wake up to. But he never believed in magic or destiny, and he wasn’t ready to build a time machine to change everything. Not yet, anyway.

Something moved along the concrete floors, like wind caressing dried leaves in the middle of autumn. A beat, a breathe, a voice.

“Your house is quiet tonight.”

Tony chuckled, not strong enough to reign in the self-deprecating sound or the feelings washing over him.

The voice waited. Tony didn’t want to open his eyes and put a face to that voice. It was clear enough in his head.

“Unwanted guests could break in much easier like this.”

“Such as yourself?” Tony let his eyes slide open. He stared at the tall figure of Loki, half hidden in the darkness of the room, half lit up by his computers.

“There are things much more...undesirable than I am, Tony.”

Tony smiled at the choice of words. He pushed away from the memories, the touches, the promises whispered in the dark and straightened himself in his chair.

“Tell me, Loki,” he started and paused for the effect, finding it amusing how quickly the other moan focused on him. “Did you ever lose a child?”

And for the first time in his life, Loki’s face crumbles to something ugly and dejected and Tony didn’t know how to react in front of that.

“It depends on how you define the term losing. Why the sudden curiosity?”

They didn’t break the eye contact as Tony hauled himself up from the chair, sauntering to the cabinet close to the wall. He picked up a bottle of scotch and two glasses. He put them down in front of Loki and opened the bottle. Pouring the alcohol in the glasses, he said in his most dramatic voice, “Storytime.”

Loki smiled, and it was a perfect match to Tony’s earlier smile. “I never pegged you one for storytelling.”

Tony shrugged. “I show you mine if you show me yours. Or something like this.”

Loki watched him carefully. He took a sip out of his drink, tongue licking his lips as he analyzed the taste. “Storytime,” he concluded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> because they never cared that Tony lost JARVIS (his child, his best friend) and it still makes me salty after all this time.


	4. Shadows - Canon Compliant / beware the fluff

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [valse sentimentale](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUuusqy50yk) played in my head while i wrote this

* * *

 

The shadows on the wall were the only clue that there was life in the room, two living, breathing creatures so close to each other that there was no space left to exchange words. A turntable in the corner was spinning an old record and a violin was weeping gently into the night.

Loki always commented on how fragile and unimportant were the human beings. How they did everything with the hope of gaining immortality, and yet, in the end, they still died. Tony scrunched up his nose and tried not to take his words too personally. He smiled, like he always did when Loki mentioned death and the imminent end of all living things, and continued to tinker with one of the repulsors. The lights blinked around him. Tony perked up and read the small message displayed on the screen in front of him. JARVIS always knew how to get his attention without disturbing the silence.

Tony let the tool drop from his hand, the noise loud in the silent workshop.

Loki looked at him with interest.

Tony proposed a dance. One that would suit his immortal tastes.

He brought out his mother’s old turntable and a record he didn’t listen to in a long time. He manoeuvred it with steady hands and when the sound of the violin started to pour out of the speakers, Loki tensed and listened. Tony smiled in victory and stretched out his hand.

“Dance with me?”

Loki joined their fingers, pushing Tony to his chest with his other hand. And stopped. His expression turned sour. Tony laughed and started to move them to the beat of the melody. He told Loki, “Close your eyes”. He told Loki, “Let the music lead.”

They both closed their eyes and moved. One step forward, one step to the side, one step back. Loki let his hand slide to the small of Tony’s back, and then under his shirt, pressing into the skin. Tony let his head fall on his shoulder, lips close to Loki’s neck, but not quite touching. JARVIS dimmed the lights in the workshop and shadows started to dance around them as city lights flickered into existence, as the sound of immortals pushed feelings into existence.


	5. Angst - canon compliant (almost) / Thor 2 spoilers

* * *

 

Tony was having an intense fight with his robots over why they should not start cleaning his workshop in his absence when the got the message. JARVIS’ tone had been crips and odd and it made Tony question the sanity of his AI (or his own, because he was the one who programmed it), but ignored the dreadful feeling making itself at home in his heart, and headed for the common area. The team was there, in all of their glory, sprawled on the couches and drinking whatever alcohol they found in the tower.

Tony stopped in the doorway to look at them, to shake his head and roll his eyes. He was part of a team who acted more like frat boys and students done with their midterms than responsible adults who had to carry the world on their shoulders.

“Stark. Finally. Come join us!”

Tony looked at Clint with a raised eyebrow but said nothing as he approached the couch and took a seat, accepting the beer from Natasha. He knocked bottles with Steve and took two big gulps out of his own drink.

“What are we celebrating?” he asked eventually, letting his head fall on the back of the couch. He blinked at JARVIS and JARVIS blinked back at him.

Clint took this as a cue to stand up, feet up on the table as he spoke. “The end of an era that was dire and grim and dangerous. The beginning of a new one, where everything will be peaceful and nice and without aliens to invade us.”

The dread bloomed further in Tony’s chest, but he ignored it in favour of paying attention to the others. “Now translate that, please.”

Sam snickered into his glass full to the brim with expensive scotch. “We got this from the mighty gods,” he said and waved a piece of paper in Tony’s face. It smelled like old days and wisdom.

Tony straightened his back and JARVIS’ odd voice popped into his head. “And?”

“Loki’s dead, Stark. Of course, we are _very_ sorry for Thor, but we are glad that our world is much safer now.”

He looked at the paper, even his eyes focused on images, on memories that were mostly in his head. He tried to swallow, but the tongue was heavy and his throat dry. “Huh. Well, I guess it does makes our work easier,” he said eventually and everyone laughed. He downed the bottle of beer in one gulp, soon followed by a glass of scotch. Only Pepper noticed how glassy his eyes got. Only Pepper knew that the cause of it wasn’t the alcohol.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> huh, I guess this hurt much more than I expected.


	6. Strike a pose - Honey & Clover AU

* * *

 

Tony was not overly fond of people interrupting his work.

Tony didn’t also like the idea of people asking him where he worked.

Tony didn’t like when people demanded to see his drawings or sculptures or whatever interest he picked up from one day to another.

Tony didn’t like it when people thought it was a good decision to wake him up for whatever stupid reason they thought it mattered.

Tony didn’t like when he got competition. He always proved he was the best in the art school anyway.

Tony hated it when his work was belittled because he had to delay his graduation by a year.

In fact, Tony didn’t like a lot of things.

What Tony did like was the huge painting that was hanging in the hallway of the university. It hadn’t been there a day before. In didn’t matter that Tony had been asleep for the last 48 hours, he would have remembered a painting like that. A landscape so still, frozen in the face of a wind, of a tornado, of the biggest storm of the century. Tony could feel it in the stroke of brushes. He could feel in the colours, in the grass that seemed to be wanting to dance, but it couldn’t. The painting seemed to vibrate, but an invisible cage was keeping it from exploding. Tony felt the feeling dig deep into his bones.

What Tony liked was the person watching the painting, all long legs and dark clothes and dark hair. There were a lot of people staring the piece of work, but none of them had fingertips stained with the green of the grass. None of them had a look in their eyes that said “ _I could have done it better_ ”.

What Tony wanted was to take that person - Loki, if the name signed on the painting was true - and paint him himself on wood, on a white canvas, on black paper. What Tony wanted was to sculpt his face into marble and engrave the strands of his hair in metal. Tony’s fingers itched with a pulse he hadn’t felt in years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bc nothing hurts more than a Honey and Clover AU ;-;  
> tony is Morita  
> loki is Hagu  
> ...kind of anyway 
> 
> (my exams are over and after my 48h of sleep i can finally write and only write)


	7. Unread - Honey & Clover pt 2

* * *

 

Sometimes, when Tony was eaten from the inside by doubts, he would check and double check and triple check his work in the middle of the night. The field was competitive and if you wanted to work for the best, you had to be the best. He would scroll through details and lines of programming and note down changes he should look over when his eyes wouldn’t hurt. His scratched the back of his head and eyed the empty place on the shelf. His Academy Award for Visual Effects would stand there and give him the stink eye if he slacked too much one day.

Sometimes, when Tony checked his work too much, he would open his Facebook page. He chose a stupid name and only his old university friends knew it. He wrote to them, from time to time. They wrote back to him, from time to time.

Loki always left him on unread.


	8. Sports - Figure Skating AU

* * *

 

Tony looks up from the amplifiers he’s fiddling with in time for a whirl of black to fly in front of his nose. He is not particularly fond of loud spaces or crowded spaces or spaces where people are out and about, even though he likes attention. Tony likes being given attention, and that hasn’t happened in two hours since he’s been called to fix the sound system.

When Tony looks up, fingers still moving wires and cutting wires and pressing buttons to make the sound clearer, he understands why there is no attention to spare for him. And he totally agrees with the small voice in the back of his mind which calls him _an_ _attention whore._

The ice rink is huge and oval and full of people training and spinning and jumping (Tony still hopes he will see some chopped fingers as well; the blood must look amazing on ice), but there is some sort of quiet, a silence that acknowledges that there is a greater being among them. The conversations continue to flow, but the eyes follow the dark figure as it flows around the ice, limbs long and elegant and dressed in black, fingers delicate and thin as they command the air around them.

The person - a man, Tony realizes - turns and turns and turns, arms poised in the air above his head, and if Tony knew anything about figure skating, he would call this an upright spin, but Tony doesn’t know so he keeps looking (staring, ogling) the tall man as he rotates on the ice, as he almost flies above everyone else. When the man stops spinning, he lets his head dip to the side, a long, pale stretch of neck peeking from underneath the long, dark curls. He blinks open his eyes, and Tony doesn’t understand how someone can do that with such an elegance. His chest is heaving, muscles moving from effort underneath the black shirt. When he straightened his back, Tony notices the colour of those eyes. Green. A green so bright it changes the man’s whole demeanour.

The said eyes look around the room and stop on Tony. Tony forgets to get himself in check and finds himself staring right back at him. The man smiles at him (quirks up the corner of his mouth a bit, but Tony will forever say that that was a smile), before taking off again to glide along the ice.

That is the most attention Tony Stark gets that day, and he realizes he doesn’t need anyone else if that man continued to look at him like that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> getting out of writing funks is harder than i thought. oh well.  
> i m back now, though


	9. Judgement - Real Life Au (Christmas Edition)

* * *

 

It was not unusual for Tony to play music at the loudest volumes whenever he was at home. He made sure to soundproof the walls (Loki was against it - what if they’re gonna get in a violent fight and nobody will hear?), so Tony could listen to his heavy metal songs whenever he was working on something at home. The loud drums and bass and guitars and guttural sounds made him concentrate better. Loki just got angry. The neighbours remained oblivious.

It was unusual, though, for Loki to listen to Christmas songs.

Tony promised him he won’t do any work on Christmas Eve and the days that followed, and he wanted to be true to his word. That meant writing codes until early hours of the morning on 24th December, replying to emails, finishing projects and organizing his working life that would pick up again after the holidays. That meant going to bed at roughly seven am, tucking himself next to a sleeping Loki, and passing out before his head hit the pillow. That meant waking up a few hours after lunch, with the smell of fresh lasagna and cookies wafting underneath the bedroom door.

His stomach rioted and his brain screamed for coffee, and Tony wasn’t the one to deny his body anything. He opened the door to his bedroom, still dressed in red pyjama pants and a band shirt when the music hit him. The voice of Mariah Carey floated through the apartment, around the decorations, hitting a still sleeping Tony in the face. He blinked once, twice, thrice, his eyes trained on Loki lounged on the couch, a book in his hand, lips moving softly to the lyrics. Loki, the one who listened to Morcheeba and Radiohead and Joy Division was singing Christmas Songs.

When Tony’s brain (still lacking caffeine) decided that it was Loki, his husband, his sweetheart, and not some creature which might have replaced him, bit his lips to stop himself from laughing and made his way to the couch. He dropped on top of Loki without any warning, head on Loki’s chest, arms around his middle. Loki scoffed but didn’t say anything. He carded his fingers through Tony’s hair and got back to reading. Tony kissed his clavicle and tightened his hold.

Mariah Carey changed into Wham and Wham switched to Dean Martin and eventually, Loki realised Tony was staring at him. He raised an eyebrow, but he still got his eyes on the book.

“What?”

Tony tried not to smile, but he guessed he failed spectacularly. “Nothing, babe.”

Loki scrunched his nose as he usually did when Tony called him names. “Then why are you staring at me?”

“Am not.”

“You are.” And finally, finally, Loki looked him in the eyes.

Tony kissed the skin above the collar of his shirt, tasting cinnamon and chocolate and winter, the feeling travelling all the way down to his toes. He wiggled a bit to get himself into a more comfortable position, and Loki opened his legs to welcome his weight and his warmth. “Didn’t know you liked singing,” Tony said, lips brushing skin.

Loki, who got back at reading his novel (Tony still tried to figure out what kind of novel had a title like “the knife of never letting go”), opened his mouth to reply, and then stopped. He frowned, pursed his lips in a thin line and glared for a second at Tony. “I’m not singing anything, Tony.”

“So, I guess you were reciting whatever you were reading on the beats of “last Christmas?”

Loki’s frown got deeper. “It’s ambient music.”

“Sure thing. I also listen to ambient music.”

The song changed again, and now the crooning voice of Frank Sinatra filled the apartment, and with it came a sense of nostalgia that Tony didn’t feel in a long time. “I’m not judging, you know. Each and everyone to their own tastes.”

When Loki kept glaring at him, book long forgotten, Tony remembered why he fell for him a few five or seven winters ago. The nostalgia he felt suddenly had the smell of a coffee shop on the 8th Avenue, the noise of snow underneath booths on the pavement and the taste of almond cookies. Frank Sinatra had been singing softly in the shop when Tony saw Loki at a table for the first time in his life.

“Some people listen to The Smiths. Others listen to Mariah Carey. And then, there are people who listen to both. So yeah, totally not judging.”

Maybe that was the breaking point for both of them. Tony couldn’t help himself anymore and started laughing, and Loki, apparently done with his shit, pushed Tony off of him. Directly on the ground. Tony kept laughing, even if his back hurt. Loki got back to his book, keeping his mouth shut. Frank Sinatra continued to sing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i woke up to snow and thought of this   
> also, writer's block is still being a bitch and i try not to judge too much whatever i write every day -_-


	10. Little birds - Fantasy AU

* * *

 

Everyone knew the tales of the beautiful prince and his fascination with birds. People came from all across the realms, bringing rare birds locked up in golden cages, all in hope of getting a glimpse of the man. It was no easy task, and very, very few got to kiss the white knuckles, in the end, head bowed low as the prince thanked them for their hard journey and the wonderful gifts. Or so the stories told.

More often than not, people were turned from the gates of the palace with a curt shake of a head, guards always standing firm in their places, spears pointed to the sky.

“No, the prince doesn’t want to see you.”

“No, the prince already has a bird like that.”

“No, the prince does not look for a marriage.”

The blacksmiths, the wizards and witches and suitors and peasants and princes and kings and queens from lands afar, all sat in front of the gates for nights in a row, maybe, maybe the prince will turn his green eye (or so the stories told) on them and grant them a second of his life. When they asked why they answered: “Make the bird fly to his royal highness' window and we will let you pass.”

The birds never flew that high. In fact, the birds turned back, to their motherland and never returned. People cried, people, yelled, people screamed for their prince, but the prince never answered.

 

\---

 

Tony Stark watched from the window of his workshop how carriages strolled through the city, how royalties made their peasants carry the heavy cages where puny little birds were chained. He watched as the same people went back home with their hands and heart empty. He watched and plotted and shaped iron after the will of his heart because that’s what he did best. When there was nothing for him in the world, he made it himself.

He worked day and night, sketching lines with chalk on pieces of parchment and clothes when there was no parchment left. He melted swords and poured liquid iron into metallic shapes, he forged the iron and redid everything again when the shape was not like in his dreams. With little money he had, he bought a colour so clear, so bright, that he almost wanted to keep it for himself.

“It’s from the city that floats on the water,” the merchant says. “They do not walk there, the go in boats with pointy ends. And their colours, oh, what an amazing thing. This one's called blue. Just like the sky.”

Tony sold half of his workshop to get his hands on the colour, and when he did, he was mesmerized. He kept a bit of himself, in a jar, hidden in the back of the library, and with the rest of it, he painted his creation until it was just as bright as the sky on a summer day. Tony wrapped the thing in silk and went to the gardens that were closest to the prince’s chambers. He kissed the object, whispered one wish to it and let it go. The metallic bird glimmered like a diamond in the air as it flew above his head, circling the air as if it was getting used to its strange wings. And then, then, it flipped through the open window.

Tony waited with bated breath. He waited until the sun went down, feet bare and gold on the warm ground.

When the moon rose and the fireflies started to dance around his ankles, there was a shadow in the window. Tony rubbed his eyes and looked up. The prince came forward, holding the metallic bird into his hands, a long, deft finger rubbing the blue wings. His eyes searched the gardens until they fell on Tony. Tony tilted his head to the right and smiled like he was not starved like he was not dressed in dirty clothes. He smiled like there was nothing in the world he would rather do. He said:

“Do you know the story of the colour blue?”

The prince tilted his head in the same fashion, his dark hair covering the beginning of his smile. He kissed the top of the metallic bird and opened the gates for Tony.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i just finished reading "the language of the thorns" and i am so in love with fantasy and fairy tales right now, it's incredible. if you love dark fairy tales, you should definitely read that book.


	11. At a snail’s pace - Assassin AU

* * *

 

“And when I’ll find you, I’ll kill you. I’ll do it so slowly that you’ve learnt to love me by the end. You’d think it’s mercy, pity. You’d think we talk feelings. “

They have been at this game for a few months already. No one knew who started it, who poked who first, who formed the first words that sounded more like a threat than a hello. There have been parties and encounters, furtive glances from across the room and fleeting touches. Chances. There have been smiles, crooked ones, real ones, bloody ones. There have been missed targets and pulses pressed against the blade of a knife.

There was Tony Stark. Assassin.

There was Loki Laufey. Lawyer.

In another life, people like them didn’t cross paths. In another life, the type of lawyer that Loki was defended the people that Tony loved taking their lives from. In another life, there was no way for Tony to come out on top. In this life, Loki refused to stand for Tony, without even meeting him, without even meaning to, without even knowing what it was all about. In this life, Tony held grudges longer than winter. In this life, Tony took pleasure in going after the people who crossed him.

Loki laughed at the other end of the line. They’ve been at this game for a few months and it started to look like a dance. He already knew the next step, the next sequence in music. _Why?_ wasn’t even a valid question anymore.

“Last time I checked, I didn’t suffer from Stockholm syndrome.”

Tony hissed. It must have been his way of laughing. “Oh, you’ll love it.”

“Then meet me.”

“Ah, too soon. Too soon. We take things slow, sugar.”

And Loki could have lied that he didn't feel his stomach jump at the words whispered in his ear, but he was a lawyer, one that defended people like Tony. He licked his lips and leaned back in his chair. He said: “How slow?”

This time Tony laughed so loud Loki felt the vibration down his back.


	12. He died, I smiled  - Infinity war

* * *

 

Tony was out on the battlefield when he felt the pull for the second time that day. If the battlefield was in the air ( _ space, the scary space _ , his traitorous brain provided for him), between bits of metal and wires floating around, that was just a detail he was not willing to think about just yet. He felt the thug deep within himself, his stomach constricting and expanding with the force of the impact. It felt like someone stabbed him in the middle of his chest. It felt like Stane came back from the dead to pull the arc reactor from his chest. Again. 

He looked around himself, trying to memorize the scenery for his future nightmares. Loki would call him weird human being, but Loki was not there to call him out on his bullshit. Loki stopped...being and Tony didn’t find the power in himself to think about him for too long. Just like with the space, he shoved the information to the back of his brain. 

Spiderman came running, flying, to him, mask in hand, eyes big and red and cheeks stained. He dropped in front of Tony and throws up on the spot. A kid, just a kid. He made a kid an Avenger. 

“Mr Stark, He - Not- He.” Peter took a deep breath and promptly threw up again. “The Captain -” 

Tony tuned him out. He always liked when he found the answer for the torment inside him, for a headache, the hurt, the confusion. Now he knew there was no Stane coming back from the dead. It was just Steve. He smiled and closed his eyes, blaming it on Peter for throwing up in front of him. He smiled and willed his heart to die for real, the second time in that week. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the movie is 20 days away and im getting sick just thinking about it


End file.
